Juxtapose

Day 3 on the cardiovascular surgical unit (CVSU, for short). Overwhelmedness factor, on a scale of 1-10: 7,000,000. Comfort measure of choice: reheated, leftover mac n' cheese dinosaurs. I just ate a t-rex and I do feel better. A little.

So it's finally sinking in, as I just realized right now, that those people I knew four years ago who I heard needed "triple bypass surgery?" Yeah, those ones that everyone (including myself) was all worried about and tsktsking about in concern because of the horror of that unknown, hideously complicated, sternum-sawing operation formerly known to me as the "triple bypass?"

Yeah, well, I guess it took me four years to realize that they exist to me now as my CABG x3 with LIMA and bilat saphenous patients. Not only that, but that the same "quadruple bypass" patient (actually CABGx4) that I had formerly so gingerly handled in my thoughts and prayers is the patient I'm now getting up and out of bed the next day after surgery. And, by the way, COUGH! Breathe in deep, you only got your chest cracked open, ya weenie! For goodness sakes, we can't have you getting pneumonia!!!

Anyways, I always remembered adults talking in low tones about the certain death of friends undergoing open heart surgery. Not that it's no big deal now, because it is, but everything has a new spin on it. You read a patient history but it really tells you nothing. So, some guy comes in and his history says that he's had five MIs. So? So what? I'm all, "Okay.. so, not really the issue right now, what do I have to focus on to keep this guy from dumping during my shift and hopefully after that?"

The thing is, I'm not thinking, like a normal person should, that having five MIs means that the poor guy has had five heart attacks. Five! What fear! What terror to live with! That's some scary stuff. But by calling it an MI, I can function without thinking too hard with feelings and letting my focus get distracted. So it's a CABGx4 for me and A-grams and, whatever, so what, dude has tubes and wires sticking right out of his chest. Just... right there. Lift up the johnny and there are some little wires all taped to his chest. Follow them to the source and where to they go? Oh, whatever, they just snake their way into his chest, connected directly to his heart so that if he "codes" (ala, his heart STOPS BEATING, for crying out loud), we just hook him up and zap him and hooray we're back in business.

So this is all exhausting. I sleep beta blockers and dream Crestor and I guess I'm just not able to think of much else but being a nurse right now. I really am looking forward to the day when it will be a job that I can (somewhat) leave behind at the hospital with me. I'm proud of what I do, happy with my choice of career, I love patients and I love medicine, but I don't like being defined by my job. I think everyone in nursing school likes a little pride in their chosen occupation - you sit through hours of boring lectures on the importance of handwashing and careplans that you'll never use, take three-hour exams with complicated, subjective answers, and then, at the end of it all, you still have to pass the boards to make your degree count towards a job. So a little pride and self-definition goes a long way in getting you through two or four years of exhaustion, really. So you put your stethoscope on your rearview mirror, you freak out about your boards, you buy cute stuff to use at clinicals (kelley clamps, expensive clipboards with built-in calculators, and those white oval bumper stickers that say "RN" on them) and you're just really excited to be a nurse. I did it, and what do you know, I made it through okay in the end. Well, to the end of the beginning, anyways.

But now, right now, I feel like a big dumpy know-nothing, and the last thing I feel I could be defined as is a nurse. I'm putting all my energies into this project of learning everything that nursing school never taught me, and that is a whole lot of stuff. All in hopes of someday being competent. There are no exam grades and I've already passed my boards. So why is this so hard?

Because it's real life. Well, I'll be darned. It all happened so fast.

I need more dinos.